The place to see where I am/what I'm doing if you find yourself interested in either of those things

Monday, May 16, 2016

2016-05-11 Italian Observations

Okay, observations about Italian culture because I know youre all gonna ask:All the older women 60+ dress hecka classy. ALWAYS in slacks or askirt with nylons and church shoes. The men dress up too.Younger generation dress like normal teenagers, but with different (newer) styleNobody lives in a house. I've been in one house since I've come here,and that was 6 weeks ago. EVERYONE lives in an apartment. Even ifthere's tons of free space, Italians will build apartments instead ofhouses. Seeing an apartment in the middle of a field? It's more commonthan rare, you guys. It's so weird.Every apartment has a balcony and many of them have plants growing on themThe cars are way smaller herePeople stop their cars in the legit middle of the street, turn ontheir hazards, and then walk into the store for ten minutesAll of the storefronts are big glass windows with a display and aprice displayed for everything, and most streets are lined withstores, apartments above them, so basically window shopping happensevery second of the dayThere are huge super stores here, they're just not as common. Morecommon is supermarkets that sell almost only food and are about as bigas the food section in Walmart, and even more common are littlebakeries and butchers and stuffItalians do sound like they're arguing almost always, even thoughthey're not usuallyIt's very green hereGuys here stare a LOT more than American guysThe pizza and gelato are really goodPeople here definitely speak with their handsThey do actually say "mama Mia"Hardly anybody goes to the gym, but it's very rare to see actually obese peopleThey do eat a lot of pasta hereThey make huge meals for you and if you don't eat all of it they couldget offended but they don't let you dish yourself up so sometimes youeat so much you think you're going to puke or cryTorino is really old and really beautiful but also pretty dirty. Forexample, there's graffiti EVERYWHERE, and everything looks it's age

We had a crazy good week this week! We had a lesson at the end of ourlast p-day with a woman who contacted US, said she knew the church 38years ago, and basically wants to join our church because of a seriesof events that had happened recently (it involves the help frommembers!) Not only does this mean we have a new investigator, but shealso told us that the next time we have an appointment, she has twofriends who she wants to bring! If this all goes through, we'll have 3new investigators soon which is INSANE.

We didn't get to have a lesson with Leslie last week :( we should beseeing her this week. BUT she came to church AND she brought a friend!Which is also way cool! The only problem is her friend is Muslim whichis totally fine and great, but we're not allowed to teach Muslims ifthey EVER plan on going back to their home country because they couldactually be killed. So we're trying to protect their lives. It'spretty crazy, the stuff people will do over religion. Anyways, Leslieprobs won't be baptized soon because her mom still but she knows whatshe needs to do and we'll help her get there, the more experienceswith the Spirit that she has.

Also we FINALLY met with a less-active member we've been trying to seefor like, a month. She asked us to help her carry her groceries thoughso I don't think she just wanted to hear our message. Anyways, shesaid she's still been reading the Book of Mormon but she hasn't beento church because she's been trying to find work/panhandling if Iunderstood correctly. Pretty much everyone here is in a desperatesituation, it's hard to watch.

Also one of my favorite couples, joy and Edward from Nigeria, arestressing us out. Because joy totally gets it. We watched therestoration video and she just totally gets it, and for the lastseveral lessons we've had some sort of disagreement with Edwardbecause he doesn't get it. This week it was that Joseph smith had totranslate the Book of Mormon through the bible because everything hasto go through the bible since only that is the word of God. Stuff likethis has been going on for weeks, it's really hard to feel the Spirit.He hasn't been able to read the Book of Mormon consistently because heneeds large print to read and it's taking forever to order it becauseyou can only get those from America in English. Anyways, as we wereleaving joy walked us to her door and she said "don't worry, when Iget documents and I am baptized then I will go to church with youpeople." Just her saying that made us realize that SHE knows that WEALL know that joy gets it and Edward doesn't. I really feel like heneeds to read the Book of Mormon. The office sent us some sort ofcryptic message with our order about the big print book. Okay. I willemail them this week to figure that out.

Also I got to FaceTime my family! This had more meaning and made mehappier than I can put into words so I'll just say I love love love myfamily and I miss them so much. But since missionaries bless theirfamilies back home, I'm sure they will dominate in the triathlonthey're doing together in a few weeks. I miss them but I'm gratefulfor the love and support and emails they send me, they are seriouslythe best.

Monday we had a zone conference and my trainer gave a dying testimony,it was really good, and it's always fun to see other missionaries. Itreminds you that you and your companion are not just adrift in a seaof strangers, but that there's other people out there doing the samething as you, and a lot of them.

Yesterday we tried to contact a referral who lived a million milesaway but she wasn't there. So we rang the rest of the apartments onher citofono (I have no idea what the word is in English) and Iaccidentally rang the same one twice, it was so embarrassing, I had totell the nice old guy that I messed up and goodnight. We also met witha member yesterday morning and her mom, who is an Italian memberpioneer. They told us a lot of fun stuff about catholic beliefs likehow Mary was born without sin like Jesus Christ and stuff like that,we love learning more about the stuff these people believe. When weinvited the daughter (who is about 50) to text an invite to everyonein her phone (a challenge our president has asked us to give) she wastotally willing and had a fire in her eyes. Usually people are kind ofokay with it but I think the spirit was really talking to her and shereally understood that someone could really come to Christ if sheactually invited everyone in her life to do so. President is having usreally focus on member missionary work because other stuff reallyisn't as effective out here.

Today we're going to the Villa Della Regina for p-day, I will sendpics. Also this week is my senior week which means I've been having toset up appointments with everyone which is horrifying and scary. But Icalled a lady I talked to on the bus a couple weeks ago and she wasall like "look, look" and I was like *omg she's gonna kill me* and shewas like "I'm very busy with work and I only have two hours freeduring the day" and I was like "oh okay yeah we understand" and shewas like "so let's try to set up a time on Friday around 2-4pm" and Iwas like "omg is this happening." It was pretty cool. Anyways, untilnext week! Ciao!